


your slow motion dreams, leave them for a moment

by deoxyribonucleotide



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Bang Chan is Whipped, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Mentioned Stray Kids Ensemble, Playlist Available, Summer Vacation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26269324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deoxyribonucleotide/pseuds/deoxyribonucleotide
Summary: When Chan returns to his hometown the summer after his second year of college, he expects to find everything and everyone exactly as he left them. Felix’s changed, though. A lot.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Felix
Comments: 13
Kudos: 125





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic as a challenge for myself; I wanted to write something that didn’t become depressing, like. Halfway through. And then it got too long, so I decided to just split it into ~~two~~ three chapters. The rest of the fic is planned out already, so the next chapter(s) shouldn’t take too long. Hopefully.
> 
> This fic is pretty ambiguously set in Australia, if only so the legal drinking age is eighteen and I don’t have to tag for underage drinking later (lmao). Honorifics are also used rather sparingly. The setting doesn’t really matter in the story, though, and I think as far as summer experiences go the ones in the fic are pretty universal.
> 
> I have also made Spotify playlists for each chapter! The playlist is as long as the estimated amount of time it takes to read this chapter, so you can listen to the playlist while reading if you want. The fic title is from a song in the first playlist, f(x)’s Summer Lover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can listen to this chapter’s playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2024ORf7J2RjQZhTviI38X?si=KDEbHlWhRoqJTZmofdUYzw). :)

Chan’s hauling boxes into the house when he first spots him. And by him, Chan means the cutest guy he’s seen in a long time. The guy’s got soft-looking brown hair, tan skin, and a pretty, somewhat catlike face. He’s wearing a 7-Eleven uniform, and on him the oversized red and black polo looks chic instead of tacky. He turns to his mom and asks, “Mom, who’s that?”

“Hm?” His mom looks up from her phone, casting a curious eye in the direction of Chan’s gaze. “Sweetheart, that’s Felix.”

Wait. Surely Chan didn’t hear that right. “Felix?”

His mom chuckles. “Oh, Channie, don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten about him. It’s Felix Lee, from three houses down! You used to have playdates and sleepovers together.”

“Oh, I remember that,” answers Chan. Growing up, he and Felix were the only children on their block, and so their childhoods had been shared to a somewhat large extent. But the Felix that he had playdates and sleepovers with looks nothing like the Felix who had just passed by. Playdates-and-sleepovers Felix was tiny with a round, freckly face and two missing teeth. Felix-who-had-just-passed-by looked and walked like a supermodel.

“That’s good to know,” his mom says. “Didn’t you recognize him?”

“No,” Chan admits, because if he had known it was Felix then he wouldn’t have ogled him so openly. Tearing his eyes away, Chan lifts a box containing a portable air conditioner and carries it into their house. It’s not that heavy, but the heat and humidity has him sweating in the five or so minutes that he spent outside. Wiping his brow with the back of his hand, Chan says, “He looks… different.”

“He does, doesn’t he?” his mom agrees as she follows him inside.

From behind their window, Chan watches Felix get smaller and smaller before rounding the bend and disappearing. He doesn’t quite know why he suddenly feels dizzy, but he does.

 _Maybe it’s all the lifting,_ he thinks, and nudges the box further in with his knees.

  


* * *

  


For the first time in a long time, Chan doesn’t have anything to do. In college, every single one of his waking moments was occupied by something. If it wasn’t the ridiculous load of engineering coursework, it was swim team practice. If it wasn’t that, then it was producing songs with his best friends. And if it wasn’t that, then it was whatever hijinks Bambam and Jackson put him up to. Suffice it to say, he had a packed schedule.

Now that he’s not in campus, though, he’s somewhat at a loss. He’s not working this summer, either, because he figured if he’s going to get a break then he might as well get a _break_ break—which is to say, he’s forgone all the responsibilities that he could for the next three months. His only real obligation is swim training but that’s so ingrained into him that it’s hardly any trouble. Everything else, though, he’s put on the backburner. Waking up without worrying about his tasks for the day may be a foreign feeling, but it sure is a welcome one.

Chan spends his days mindlessly. He catches up on all the games he’d ignored in favor of schoolwork. He goes through an entire season in _Stardew Valley_ in a matter of days, but that’s par for the course—it is a horribly addictive game. He finishes some of the books that people gave him as a gift on his birthday, feeling mildly concerned that he’s already at the age where people gave him _books_ as a gift and meant it. _The Tao of Pooh_ turns out to be a more enjoyable read than he expects, so maybe the books aren’t a bad idea after all.

On some mornings, he takes Berry with him on his run, and when they both get tired, they sit on the benches at the park and people-watch. When he gets home, he helps his mom in the garden, marveling at all the plants she’d grown in a year. On some afternoons, he helps his dad with their car as well as little errands around the house. His little brother, Lucas, is in summer camp for the entire break, which is probably a good thing for all of them—Lucas is going through his rough teenage years, and everyone over the age of eighteen is probably ancient and annoying in his eyes. Chan knows this because he’d thought pretty much the same when he was at the same age.

But in a week or so, he runs out of things to do. Or to be more accurate, he _does_ have things to do—games to play, books to be read, plants to water—but he’d done all that since his break began and it was starting to feel a bit routine. A bit too mechanical. He tries to sleep more, just so he has fewer waking hours than he knows what to do with, but the days are so _long,_ and he can only sleep so much.

“I’m so bored,” he says from where he’s flopped down onto the sofa. He and his mom are watching _Reply 1988_ together, because he’s bored enough that he’s started to indulge her K-drama kick.

His mom doesn’t even turn, invested as she is in the episode. “Why don’t you try swinging by the Lees’, then?”

 _Because I nearly had a conniption when I saw their son again,_ Chan thinks, but doesn’t say. What kind of reason is that, anyway? It’s hardly a valid one at all. What he says instead is, “I dunno. I’ll think about it.”

“Stop by at least once, would you?” his mom says, delicately munching on some popcorn. “I’m sure Felix would be delighted to see you.”

Chan doesn’t quite agree with that—he’d barely even spoken to Felix last summer, and they’d been steadily growing apart even before that. He keeps his reservations to himself, though. His mom’s already near tears because Bora got arrested, and he doesn’t want to make things worse.

  


* * *

  


He really doesn’t have any other ideas, though, so in a few days he finds himself staring down the door to the Lees’ house.

 _This is stupid,_ he thinks, and then rings the doorbell.

Thankfully, it’s Felix who opens the door to him and not his parents. Chan gets to see the wide-eyed look of surprise grow on his face—and _oh,_ the freckles are still there. Somehow, it’s this detail that sticks out to Chan.

“Ch-Chan-hyung?” asks Felix. His voice was already low the last time they’d spoken, but it’s gotten even lower. “Why’re you here…?” He winces. “No, wait, sorry—that’s kinda rude. Do you want to come in?”

Chan nods, letting himself be led inside. The Lees’ living room hasn’t changed that much—still the same sand oak floors, the same cheery but minimalist aesthetic. The one thing that’s changed is Felix, and this close, the difference is more obvious. Gone are past Felix’s chubby cheeks and skinny limbs; a sharp jawline and toned arms and legs have taken their place. Not only is Felix more built, he’s taller, too. He’s the same height as Chan now; last year, he was only up to Chan’s chin.

Felix sits on their white leather sofa, and Chan cautiously takes the other side.

“So, hyung, what brings you to this neck of the woods?” asks Felix. His apprehension from earlier has apparently disappeared, and now he’s smiling cheekily and swinging his legs.

“Just wanted to hang out,” Chan answers, “I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Yeah, you hardly visited last summer,” Felix comments. “Busy with your job, were you?”

Chan nods. To be honest, he hadn’t been _that_ busy, but if that was what Felix thought then he wasn’t going to deny it. “I’m not working now, so I’ve got a lot of time on my hands.”

“Hyung’s finally deigned to hang out with me,” Felix says sadly, before his face splits into a grin. “Kidding, kidding. I baked some brownies like an hour ago, do you want some? We can have them while we catch up.”

“Oh, if it’s alright with you,” says Chan.

“I wouldn’t be offering if it wasn’t, hyung,” Felix replies, before getting up and going to the kitchen. When he comes back, he has a tray of brownies, a pitcher of water, and two glasses all balanced precariously in his arms.

Chan helps him set the things on the low coffee table, receiving a quiet and low “Thanks,” in return.

“So, hyung,” Felix says once he’s sat down again. “How have you been?”

That’s… somewhat difficult to answer, actually. Chan’s doing better now that it’s break, but the last few months of his second year were probably the worst in all his years of schooling. He’s not sure if Felix wants to hear about that, though. The troubles of a chemical engineering major with too many damn things on his plate. So he sticks to the basics, _I’m doing okay, this is what I’ve been doing recently_ -type stuff. The answers are kind of small talk-y because as of now Chan doesn’t know if Felix is interested in anything else.

But weirdly enough, Felix is curious about his college life. He asks about the new friends he’s made there, the things they study in their major, what he does in his spare time. Chan tells him all about the first two but keeps the details on the last topic fairly scarce—he’s not sure how to phrase his answer in a manner that won’t make him look like a raging alcoholic. (Sue him. It was a stressful semester, okay?)

“Oh, that reminds me,” says Chan after he’s gone on a bit about his music projects with Changbin and Jisung. “Are you going to college this March? And if you are, then where?”

Felix munches on his brownie before speaking. “Yeah, I am. Same university as you, actually, hyung.”

“That’s cool,” says Chan, and then drinks a large gulp of water. “What are you majoring in?”

“I’m an undecided major for now,” Felix answers, leaning back against the sofa’s arm. “My folks aren’t too pleased that I want to go into dance, so they made me promise to take a few science courses first, see if anything stuck. I agreed, because I did like chem in high school, anyway. Who knows? College might make a scientist out of me yet.”

Felix pushes his bangs back and out of his face, and Chan is struck by how _pretty_ his childhood friend has become. He stops that train of thought before it can leave the station. He’s here to make friends with Felix, not make eyes at him.

“Whatever you decide to take up, Felix, I’m sure you’ll do well,” he says, keeping his voice even. “You’re a smart kid.”

Felix wrinkles his nose. “Hyung, I’m eighteen. ‘m not a kid anymore.”

“A smart young man, then,” amends Chan, laughing.

“‘Young man’?” Felix snickers. “Why’re you talking like you’re already thirty? Hyung, you’re like, two years older than me.” He shifts, sitting cross-legged on the sofa. “Is this what college does to people? Prematurely age them?”

“Yeah, actually,” says Chan, shuddering as he recalls his daily seven AM lectures. “But let’s not talk about that, god. How have _you_ been, Felix? How was senior high?”

“Horrible, but lots of fun,” Felix answers. It was horrible because it was busy as hell for him—on top of the responsibilities of schoolwork, he also joined a local dance crew and volunteered at an animal shelter. Through these, Felix was able to make more friends, and he tells Chan about some of them: Minho and Hyunjin, members of the dance crew, as well as Jeongin and Chenle, fellow volunteers at the shelter. Felix also recounts the utter train wreck that was their prom night—some random couple had gotten into a fight which had resulted in an upended punch bowl and glass shards everywhere. On hindsight, though, he admits that it was rather funny watching from the sidelines.

The conversation flows seamlessly from then, and it’s a pleasant surprise for Chan. He’d been scared that going to Felix’s house would be a mistake, that he’d show up there and have to leave in an hour because of how awkward things are between them. But that’s simply not the case. Because they haven’t talked in a while, they have a wealth of stories and experiences to share. Catching up turns out to be fun.

Chan loses track of the time, and it’s not until he checks his phone that he realizes how long he’s stayed in the Lees’. He’d gone here after lunch, and it was already quarter to seven. He taps on Messages and finds a text from his mom: _Are you eating dinner here or at Felix’s?_

“Oh, mom’s making steak tonight,” Felix says off-handedly after Chan’s told him about the text. “Won’t you stay for dinner? I bet she’ll make more than we can finish anyway.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble—”

“You aren’t, hyung. And it’s not like you live a mile away or something. Come on,” says Felix, “stay.”

There’s something to be said about the persuasive powers of Felix Lee, with his bright eyes and quiet restlessness and cautiously optimistic smile—like he’s afraid Chan would turn him down.

That’s not going to happen anytime soon, Chan thinks, as long as Felix keeps looking at him like that.

“Alright,” he relents, settling back down. He reaches for another brownie. “I’m staying.”

  


* * *

  


Chan’s visit to the Lees’ seems to have broken some sort of wall between him and Felix, because they’re suddenly hanging out together a lot more than they have in the last two years. It starts small—Felix visits him in their house one afternoon, another tray of brownies in his hand. (“I’ve been baking all sorts of shit this summer, but these brownies are my favorite,” he explains later, when they’re all settled in the living room.) And then Felix accidentally leaves the tray behind, and Chan’s sense of neighborly propriety tells him that he has to return it. This he does a few days later, after he’s finished repotting some of the Boston ferns in their garden. Mr. and Mrs. Lee are so happy to see him back that they invite him for lunch, and this time around, Chan doesn’t hesitate to say yes.

“Your folks tell me you’re in engineering?” Mr. Lee says by way of a question. He’s an engineer himself, so Chan supposes that’s why he’s asking.

“Yes. I’m in chemical engineering,” Chan answers, slicing a prawn into smaller pieces before popping them into his mouth.

“Damn,” Mr. Lee says with feeling. “You got your work cut out for you, kiddo. Make sure you’re resting up, huh? I can’t imagine it being easy, taking that up while you’re in the swim team.”

“That’s why I’m doing nothing this summer, really,” says Chan. “I think I deserve a break after all the sh—er, all the work I put in last year.”

“That’s understandable,” says Mr. Lee. “But I bet your coach is still insisting on keeping up a training regimen, huh?”

“Ah, definitely,” Chan answers, thinking of Coach Ok and what his reaction would be if Chan came back and he didn’t look exactly like how he’d left. “It’s nothing too heavy though, so it isn’t really a hassle.”

“Hyung, you’re really on the uni swim team?” Felix asks, eyes wide.

“Uh, yeah?” Chan says.

“That’s so cool. _You’re_ so cool,” Felix breathes, and the palpable admiration in his voice is enough to make Chan blush.

“Honestly, though, I might quit the team next year,” he admits.

“Oh _no,_ why?” Felix asks, voice taking a slightly whiny tone.

“My upperclassmen tell me that junior year is hell for our major,” explains Chan, shrugging. “It’s the start of thesis work and lab exercises and some really hard major subjects, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to juggle that on top of training.”

“I dunno,” Felix says, twirling some pasta around his fork. “I think you could handle it, hyung. If anyone could, it’s you.”

“Thanks, Felix.” He sounds so sure that Chan can’t tell him otherwise, so he just pushes the conversation in a different direction. “Mrs. Lee, these prawns are great. Any chance you could give me the recipe?”

“I’ll get Felix to send you the link later,” Mrs. Lee says, which prompts Felix to joke about them being old enough to send e-mails of their own.

Lunch passes in a blur of delicious food and curious questions. Chan asks some about Felix, and his parents are all too prepared to answer him with stories of him in senior high. He finds out that Felix graduated first honorable mention and bagged an excellence award in chemistry to boot. Those achievements required serious dedication on his part, given that his weekends were constantly busy, filled with either dance practice or volunteer work. Felix’s cheeks are red, bashful because his parents are basically bragging about him while he’s around. But he lets them talk about him, a tiny, pleased smile on his face.

By the end of lunch, Chan is left wondering what made him avoid visiting for so long. He feels just as at home at the Lees’ as he was before, when he and Felix were still tiny and young. And Felix is still good company, despite being so different from the boy he remembers.

Chan eyes the long shadows the streetlights on the pavement as he walks back to his house. Only one thought remains in his head, almost like a stubborn cloud in an endless blue sky: _This summer’s not going to be anything like the last, is it?_

  


* * *

  


It starts small, but over the course of the next weeks, Chan’s days fill up with Felix. They can’t meet every day—Felix gets pretty tired after eight hours of minding a 7-Eleven—but they do hang out a lot. Mostly, they play video games at either of their houses, losing themselves in _Borderlands 3,_ or when they’re in a pretty peaceful state, _Minecraft_. On other days, they watch movies, and Chan gets acquainted with a rather concerning amount of chick flicks because that, apparently, is Felix’s thing. He gets judged pretty hard when he admits he hasn’t watched _Mean Girls,_ but realizes once the film ends that the judgment had been completely justified. _Mean Girls_ is a fucking classic. He’s going to make Changbin and Jisung watch it with him when they get back.

When he feels bored without Felix, Chan stops by the 7-Eleven where he works. Chan buys a large Slurpee when he gets there so that the manager wouldn’t tell him off for loitering. Because Felix is either behind the counter or helping a customer out in the aisles, they can’t really do much aside from talk, but it is worth it to see Felix break into a grin as Chan entered the store. Chan stays until there he finishes the Slurpee—which is to say he stays for a long amount of time, until the Slurpee gets all melt-y and liquid, because Felix is fun to be around.

It’s in these days that Chan truly learns how much Felix has changed. Felix has grown into himself; he moves and talks with a confidence that never fails to surprise Chan. The stutter that he’d had when he was younger is gone now, and he never holds back in teasing Chan whenever the opportunity presents itself. Most surprising of all, honestly, is how much Felix seems to be looking forward to the future, to change—Chan knows this because he has an unending fount of questions regarding college.

The Felix that Chan is familiar with hated change, clung to familiar routines and people, but today’s Felix is itching to grab life by the horns. With how much more confident he’s become, Chan believes that he’s ready for it.

In some ways, though, Felix has stayed pretty much the same. His geeky interests haven’t died down at all—he still reads _One Piece_ religiously, proudly showing Chan the shelf that housed volume upon volume of the said manga in his room. He still collects _Funko Pops_ and _Nendoroids,_ and opposite the _One Piece_ shelf in his room stands a glass cabinet full of brightly colored little figurines. He still plays _Pokémon,_ getting (cutely) huffy whenever Chan manages to beat him in a VGC format match.

And deep down, too, Felix hasn’t changed at all. He’s still the same sweet and kind kid Chan had met all those years ago. This Chan knows because Felix has been volunteering at the same animal shelter for the past three years. He says it’s only until summer ends, and then he’ll have to find another place to volunteer at closer to their university, and _Chan-hyung, you wouldn’t happen to know any animal shelters there, would you?_

He still treats everyone they meet with the same kindness and sincerity, even the drunk assholes who occasionally buy stuff at the 7-Eleven. (Sheesh, who even gets drunk by lunchtime? There are some serious day drinkers in their town.) 

And he bakes a whole _lot,_ everything from brownies to baklava, and always makes sure to give some to Chan and his family.

Case in point, when someone rings their doorbell in the morning, Chan’s already expecting it to be Felix. He’d mentioned something about trying a new recipe last night, so Chan expects that this might be him sharing the fruits of his labor. What Chan doesn’t expect, though, is the outfit Felix is wearing. He’s in a sleeveless Nike shirt and tiny, tiny running shorts that showed off miles of toned, tan legs. It takes a considerable amount of Chan’s willpower to home in on the box of cupcakes in Felix’s hands.

“Thought I’d drop this off before I went for a run,” Felix explains, holding the box out.

Chan can’t say anything because he’s been rendered mute, so he just smiles and takes the box.

“They’re red velvet cupcakes. I hope you like them, hyung!” says Felix, smiling shyly before taking his leave.

After lunch, he and his parents eat the cupcakes for dessert, and his mom says, “Felix is such a lovely boy, isn’t he?”

Chan, who has been trying and failing to scrub the image of Felix’s ass in those shorts from his memory, can only say, “Yeah. Real lovely.”

  


* * *

  


It only gets worse. Certain death comes for Chan when one morning Felix asks him, “Hyung, do you want to come with me to the dance studio?”

“The dance studio?” Chan asks. They’ve been preparing a huge batch of cookie dough the entire morning, something for the staff at the animal shelter, so the question comes as a bit of a surprise.

“It’s Saturday today, so I’m meeting with some of my dance crew friends,” Felix explains. “Sometimes our friends come to watch or join! I just realized I haven’t invited you yet, so….” He trails off, looking at Chan with that same hopeful shine in his eyes.

“Y-yeah, sure, I’ll come with,” Chan says, internally cringing at how shaky his voice sounds. What is he, fifteen? He can only hope Felix didn’t notice that, but the smirk on his face says otherwise.

“Awesome! It’s not until like, three in the afternoon, but you might want to stop by your house to change into workout clothes,” Felix adds, tearing out some cling film to cover the top of his mixing bowl.

“Oh? Going to take me dancing, are you?” jokes Chan. Well—it’s not really a joke if he means it.

“Maybe,” is Felix’s response, smiling slyly. “But mostly it’s Minho-hyung you have to be worried about. He gets everyone to try out the choreography, even the bystanders.”

“I’ll watch out for him, then,” Chan replies.

They put all the cookie dough in the refrigerator, and then sit down in the living room to play some _Shovel Knight_ to pass the time. Chan is kind of bad at platformers, but Felix enjoys them, so he still has fun, even if Felix has to save his ass a few times.

Before he knows it, it’s already a quarter past two and Felix is sending him home for a change of clothes. So he does, slipping into a sleeveless shirt and basketball shorts, putting on some running shoes. Thankfully, when Chan meets up with Felix, he’s not dressed in a repeat of the outfit that had given him so much trouble a few days ago; he’s in a ratty Nike shirt and black sweatpants.

When Felix sees him, he wolf-whistles. “Nice guns, hyung.”

“Thanks,” Chan says. He thinks he’s blushing. “Er—where to, now?”

“It’s a bit of a hike, so let’s just drive there,” Felix says.

On the way to the studio, Felix plays a mix of 2000s pop, and they sing their hearts out to Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. They pull up at the studio ten minutes before three; the receptionist takes one look at Felix and goes back to her magazines. Felix leads him to a room that’s big and pleasantly cold, with mirror-lined walls from floor to ceiling.

A guy with red hair looks up at the sound of the door opening. “Felix!” he says, smiling as he approaches them. “And who’s this?”

“Minho-hyung, this is Chan-hyung,” Felix says, motioning with his hands. “He’s my friend! He lives down the street.”

“Oh, so _this_ is Chan,” Minho says. For a moment, the intensity of his gaze has Chan feeling like a mouse at the mercy of a cat, but it flickers and disappears. Minho’s smiling now, and quite prettily at that. “Come join us. We don’t have any competitions lined up, so this is mostly us just messing around.”

“I’m warning you, I’m not much of a dancer,” Chan says, shifting from foot to foot.

Minho snorts. “With a body like that I somehow doubt it, but sure. No pressure though, if you don’t want to.”

Chan does end up dancing anyway, because sitting on the floor without doing anything makes him restless. He’s changed clothes for it anyway, so he might as well make the most of that. Felix’s dance crew friends are all welcoming, and he gets the feeling Felix has told them about him at least once—he’s met with the constant “Oh, _this_ is Chan,” but instead of making him feel conscious, it just makes him feel… kind of nice? Yeah, it feels kind of nice that Felix is telling his other friends about him.

The crew members teach him the moves and don’t give him hell when he can’t get them right immediately. Some of the other members have brought their own friends, like Hyunjin who’s brought Seungmin and Chaeryeong who’s brought Lia, so Chan doesn’t feel like he’s out of place at all. Honestly, it feels more like an aerobics session than a dance crew practice, but it’s fun that way. Just a couple of teenagers dancing and freestyling to the top tracks on the radio.

After some time, Minho announces a break, after which the crew would move on to a run-through of their latest routine. They might not have anything lined up as of now, but they still do a routine at least once a week; constant practice pays off once competition season rolls in. This time, Chan and the non-crew members sit to the side, watching as the dancers prepare, some sipping water, some doing stretches. 

“Are you guys ready?” asks Seungmin. In his lap sits the MacBook connected to the room’s speakers. When the dancers have all given him a thumbs-up, he presses play.

The moment the music starts, the dancers burst into captivating motion. The song is something sultry and R&B, almost like velvet in how it sounds. The crew members match its energy with smooth and seductive moves that take Chan’s breath away. It’s amazing—almost as if the dancers have become different creatures now that they’re performing one of their pieces. They dance and move and change positions so seamlessly that Chan can do nothing but sit there and watch.

And Felix. God, Felix. Chan had some inkling of Felix’s talent before—he remembers watching Felix, young and small, dance in school events. But that does not prepare him one bit for to how he’s moving now: powerful and precise but so damn graceful. Some parts of the choreography are rather dirty, for a lack of a better word, but Felix makes them look… he makes them look elegant, which is not something Chan thought he’d ever say about a move that’s basically fucking the floor. Felix looks up as he does it and meets Chan’s eyes; something wicked glimmers in his gaze and he continues the motion with renewed sensuousness. Chan hopes the others aren’t watching his reactions to the dance, because he’s sure he looks more like a gaping fish than an actual human.

The whole performance probably lasts three minutes, but it feels longer than that to him. He thinks that maybe the visual overload has fried his brain. Or maybe it’s just Felix that has. The dancers hold their tableau for a moment or so after the music stops, and then they collectively heave a deep breath and shuffle to the side, grabbing their water bottles and towels and phones.

Once Felix is done drinking water, he rushes to Chan. His brown hair is matted with sweat and there’s a pleasant redness to his freckled cheeks. “Hyung! Did you like that?”

“Yeah,” Chan says. _Maybe too much. Can you do that thing again—?_ “It was amazing, Felix. You’re really good at dancing now.”

“Aw, thank you, hyung,” Felix says. He’s grinning sweetly like he wasn’t sending Chan to an early grave just a few minutes ago. “We’ll have to do two more runs, give or take, really get everything down pat. Keep your eye on me, okay?” He winks, and then skips off to where Minho and the other dancers have gathered.

Chan doesn’t know how long he stands there dumbly, the thoughts in his head spinning like a record on a turntable, but he only snaps out of it when Seungmin taps him on the shoulder and pulls him back to the side.

  


* * *

  


Over the summer, Chan’s kept up a steady stream of communication with the friends he met in college. It’s not quite the same as hanging out with them in real life—nothing can come close to that—but he takes what he can get. He sends Bambam and Jackson post-workout selfies and receive some of their own in return; sends Changbin and Jisung snippets of random songs he’s thought up over the break; sends Sana and Jihyo some pictures of the things he and Felix bake. It’s been a while, though, since he’s had a video call with any of them. So when Jisung starts a video call on the 3RACHA Discord server, Chan doesn’t hesitate to join it.

“Long time no see, losers,” Jisung says, his hands in twin peace signs. He looks different—his hair is dark instead of the honey blonde from last semester, and his eyebags have almost completely faded away.

“That’s funny coming from the biggest loser outta all of us,” Changbin remarks, and he looks different, too. His dark hair is long and slightly shaggy, and his cheeks are fuller than when Chan last saw him.

“Who’re you calling loser, loser?” Jisung growls, and then the both of them are cackling like madmen.

It makes Chan happy that summer break has been treating his friends good. The three of them fall into step quite easily, and there’s not a boring moment once they really get going. _What have you guys been doing?_ and _How have you been?_ soon turns into random conversation the likes of which one could only access when they’re with the closest of friends.

Jisung recounts his encounter with their weird neighbor who only wears running shorts and shoes when he’s out on a run—it’s winter in Seoul right now—and wonders out loud how he doesn’t get hypothermia. In Chan’s eyes, that neighbor is probably a robot or something; Seoul’s winters were brutal, how the hell could he stand them in just running shorts? Changbin shares his misadventures in trying to cook something more complex than instant ramen, and how he’d almost caused a fire when he left the stove on without realizing. Jisung laughs at him but quiets down when Changbin reminds him that he’d caused a building evacuation that time he tried making samgyetang. And Chan tells them about Felix, who had again given him a box of baked treats—snickerdoodles this time—before going out to his shift in the 7-Eleven.

“Ooh, Felix?” asks Jisung curiously. “I think you’ve mentioned him before.”

“He’s your childhood friend, right?” Changbin asks. “Thought you guys weren’t talking anymore.”

“Yeah, we weren’t, not until this summer,” Chan replies. His best friends, because they’re busybodies with too much time on their hands, pry the full story from him. He goes over his visits to the Lees’, his stops by 7-Eleven when he’s feeling bored, the last time they went to the studio.

“Hey hyung,” says Changbin, sounding oddly serious. “Why does it sound like he’s flirting with you?”

“What?” Chan asks. He’s not dumb; he knows that some of their interactions could be construed that way, but he doesn’t think they should.

“Yeah, honestly,” Jisung helpfully supplies, “baking for someone once is enough, but all those times? It has to mean something.”

“There’s no reason for him to be flirting with me, though?” Chan says, leaning back into his chair. “I think he’s just doing that to be friendly.”

Changbin and Jisung laugh in unison, and the sound is sharp enough to make Chan lower the volume a little bit.

“I don’t know, hyung,” Jisung says, in a tone of voice that suggests he _does_ know and is just being difficult, “grinding on the floor while making eye contact doesn’t seem to be friendly behavior to me.”

“ _Overly_ friendly behavior, more like,” Changbin snorts. “No offense, hyung, you’re usually more confident than this—”

“More of a fuckboy, you mean,” Jisung cuts in, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Nah, let’s stick to more confident,” insists Changbin. “You’ve asked out people who’ve flirted less with you before. What’s all this about?”

The thing is Chan physically can’t consider the possibility. In his brain, Felix is inextricably linked to childhood memories: things like eating Rainbow Paddle Pops while sitting on the curb; waiting in the cold morning air for the school bus to arrive; or going to the beach and getting yelled at for wandering too near the shore. He’s known Felix all his life, and one of his earliest memories is getting one of his toys stolen by a tiny wailing Felix Lee.

This, really, is what brings Chan up short whenever Felix does those inexplicable Felix things. Although Chan’s base senses are on board—he can recognize a pretty face, a cute ass, okay—it’s his brain that says, _Hey, this is Felix we’re talking about here. You can’t think_ that _about Felix. It’s not like that between you two._

Aside from that, though, he can’t even imagine the explaining he’d have to do to both of their parents, particularly to Felix’s, if they for some reason end up together. (Which, again, is impossible.) What’s Chan supposed to say to Mr. and Mrs. Lee? _Sorry, I’m going out with your son, even though you’ve practically raised us as brothers?_

“Yeah, but you’re not brothers, though,” Jisung points out. “So what’s the problem?”

“I’m just saying,” Chan says, wiping his hands on his sweatpants, “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t feel that way. Felix bakes a lot, and I think he gives it to everyone here. And the floor thing—maybe he did that because he finds my reactions funny or something.” This is the more plausible option to him, given that Felix always has a smirk dancing on his lips whenever he strikes Chan dumb.

“Keep telling yourself that,” says Changbin, a twinkle in his dark eyes. “You’ll see.”

  


* * *

  


Felix continues to be his maddening self over the next few days, and the worst part is, Chan doesn’t have it in himself to complain. They go on a morning run together, and Felix comes along wearing a Nike crop top and tiny running shorts. They bake carrot cupcakes, and Felix plays with the cream cheese frosting in a manner that bodes ill for Chan’s heart. They stop by the park after Felix’s shift at 7-Eleven, and somehow Felix gets Chan to buy him dinner from an Asian fusion food truck there. No, it has nothing to do with Felix saying “please, Chan-hyung,” in the cutest voice ever. It has absolutely nothing to do with that.

Aside from those instances, though, Chan likes to think he’s doing good. He hasn’t done anything stupid like kissed Felix senseless, even if the thought has crossed his mind more than a few times. It’s like there’s a war between his hormones and his higher thought processes; thankfully, it’s the latter that’s winning out.

Felix is probably riling him up because Chan goes this horrible beet red when he’s embarrassed, starting from his ears all the way down to his chest, and it is hilarious to see. Or maybe he’s using his charm to get free shit out of him. This is all making it seem like he’s a sucker for Felix, but what can he say? That is, for the most part, true. (To be quite frank, he has been one since childhood. He’s always found it hard to say no to Felix.)

Nothing happens to shake up that particular theory of his—that is, until today. He’s on a video call again, albeit with different friends this time: Sana and Jihyo. Chan met them in different classes—Sana in his public speaking elective, Jihyo in his differential calculus class. He didn’t know that they were friends with each other, too, not until he’d stumbled upon them drinking bubble tea together at a café. But Sana had called him over that day, and they’d had a ball just chatting; the three of them became quick friends after that. They’re all from different majors—Sana’s in international studies, Jihyo in economics—but they hung out when they could. Over the summer, that had meant trading pictures of baked goods, the occasional video call, and visits to each other’s islands on _Animal Crossing_.

Sana is going off about a band whose concert she wants to attend when Felix enters Chan’s room. “Chan-hyung!”

Chan turns, sees him. “Just a moment, guys,” he says to the screen, taking out one of his AirPods. “Hey, Felix. Work end early?”

“Yeah,” Felix says. He pulls up another chair and sits next to Chan. “Some idiot knocked over so much soda and beer in one of the aisles, it was actually kind of scary. I swear the whole shop smelled like a bar. So they had to shut things down today to get the place cleaned.”

“Wow, that’s awful,” Chan says. He hears someone clear their throat—oh, right. He’s on a video call. He disconnects his AirPods for now, letting the call go through his speakers instead. “Ah, I don’t think I’ve introduced you guys before… Felix, this is Sana and Jihyo, my friends from college,” he says, gesturing in turn at the screen, “and guys, this is Felix. He’s… a friend of mine.”

“Hi, Felix!” Sana says brightly. As she waves, her hand becomes a blur of pixels. “Oho, Channie, he’s the one that lives on the same street as you, right?”

Felix’s smile stiffens and cracks. “Y-yeah,” he says, “that’s me. Hi.”

“Whoa,” Sana whoops, a hand coming up to cover her mouth. “Your voice is super low! That’s _so cool_.”

Jihyo laughs at her reaction. “Sorry, Felix,” she says, shaking her head, “you’ll have to forgive her for being too excitable. I think she had too much coffee in the morning.”

“Hey, didn’t you say you going on that no-caffeine-in-your-diet thing?” Chan asks, because he doesn’t drink coffee either and Sana had come to him for advice the last time they’d seen each other in person.

“Oops. Yeah, that lasted as far as my internship here began,” she admits. “But how can I refuse? I’m the intern; _I_ make the coffee. I can’t help myself if I’m always around it!”

Chan laughs, because when she puts it like that, it does make a certain amount of sense. “Okay, but seriously, you have to at least cut back a little bit. You had fuckin’ _palpitations_ last semester.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sana says, giggling, “don’t mother me when you’re younger than me, Channie.”

“Sana, I think you need the mothering,” says Jihyo, long-suffering but fond.

It’s easy enough to talk with his friends like this, but Chan’s kind of scared that Felix would feel left out. So he tries as much to make him feel included in their conversation. Despite his best efforts, though, Felix seems kind of listless and awkward. He gives short answers to their questions, and the smile on his face is brittle instead of pretty and relaxed.

Later, after the call ends, and he and Felix are sitting on the fluffy rug on the floor, Felix asks him, “Was one of them your girlfriend?”

“One of whom?” Chan says. They’ve been talking about Game of Thrones for the past ten minutes, so the question doesn’t make any sense in context.

“The noonas you were talking to earlier,” Felix murmurs, talking to his lap.

“Oh, Sana and Jihyo?” Chan laughs, picking at a loose threat at the hem of his shirt. “No, no, Felix. I’m not dating either of them.” Even if he wants to, he thinks it’s kind of logistically impossible. They don’t talk about it in specifics, but Chan is pretty sure that Sana’s a lesbian and that Jihyo’s already seeing some guy from Theater Arts. “They’re awesome, but we’re just friends.”

“Don’t you want to go out with them?” presses Felix, sounding somewhat agitated.

“No,” Chan answers honestly. He’s not the type to shit where he eats; the three of them ran in enough of the same circles for things to become weird if the relationship went sour. “I’ve never considered doing that, Felix.”

“So you don’t have a girlfriend right now,” Felix ventures.

“No.”

“A boyfriend?”

Chan smiles. “Not that, either. I’m afraid I’m single.” _But if you keep driving me wild, I might just do something outrageous, like ask you out._

“Oh.” Felix is quiet for a moment. Then, without looking at Chan, he says, “good.”

 _What do you mean, good?_ Chan wants to ask, but it seems as if Felix has said all that he wants to on the matter, because he moves on to something else, and quick.

Felix’s cryptic comment seems easy enough to interpret, but only if Chan would let himself see it differently. But they’re friends—only friends—so of course he doesn’t let himself consider it that way. He doesn’t, not at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll leave it until here for now hehe
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back lol. This kind of ran away from me, so I decided to split the rest off for another chapter _again._ Don’t worry, the third chapter will most likely be short, and all the ends will be tied up there. I’m hoping I can get it done soon because I have a fic fest entry I’ve been ignoring for the past few months (oof) _and_ college just started here. Higher education is truly the enemy of the fic writer.
> 
> As with the last time, I made a Spotify playlist for this chapter, too! You can listen to it [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4dDB8kPdCt0V62Xx43BUZv?si=0Lgjf549T4qrpc4ttK7o7A). You can listen to it while reading the fic, if you want. :)
> 
> This chapter contains descriptions of a horror movie. There’s nothing too graphic, but if you want to avoid it, please check the end notes on which paragraphs to skip.

It was easy enough for Chan to believe that this summer would be a normal one—that had been his plan from the get-go, anyway. A normal summer, if one that was a bit lazy, with the most excitement to be encountered being kids interrupting in his workout sessions at the pool. Playing his way through the small horde of games that he’d accumulated with near-weekly trips to EB Games. Running errands for his parents when they got too tired to weather the heat.

But Felix is a whirlwind, and because of him the nondescript summer that Chan had envisioned evaporates. Even the most normal, most garden-variety of activities becomes something special when they’re shared with him. Trips to the mall become tours of excitement as Felix flits from stall to stall, looking for curios to buy. Walking Berry in the morning becomes more enjoyable with Felix happy to play with her. Even the videogames that Chan’s already finished before he can enjoy a second time, just watching Felix go through the levels and helping him beat the bosses.

Chan’s parents notice, of course, that the two of them have been spending a lot of time together. How could they not, when it seemed like half of the time, Chan was at the Lees’ and the other half of the time, Felix was at theirs? The dinner that they’re eating now is somewhat rare in that Felix isn’t there with them; tonight, he’s on the other side of the town, celebrating a friend of a friend’s birthday.

“You’re getting along well with Felix,” his mom comments, her tone casual but inquisitive at the same time.

“Yeah,” says Chan, “he’s really fun to be with, and we have a lot of shared interests now.” They’d played _Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime_ the entire day before Felix had to go, and it was, like everything he did with Felix, golden.

“I’m happy that you’re getting closer,” his mom tells him, and when she sees his plate’s gotten empty, she portions out another serving of baked salmon onto his plate. “You two were always together growing up, it was a bit sad when you drifted apart.”

“I’m happy, too.” At his mom’s words, memories of the past washing over Chan a bit. He and Felix have a two-year age difference, and for them that had meant Chan entering secondary school at an earlier time. Going to separate schools, the two of them could no longer hang out as frequently as they had before. On top of that, Chan formally joined the swim team in seventh grade, and his swim team obligations further limited their time together. By the time Felix entered secondary school as well, the two of them had already spent so much time apart and changed so much, too. Remaining close friends was impossible.

The rest of dinner is spent in pleasant conversation, but Chan’s mind keeps going back to Felix. Growing apart from Felix was one of the things that he disliked about his teenage years, so in a way, he’s grateful for this summer, because it’s given him the chance to become friends with Felix again.

The real problem, he thinks as he looks at some pictures that Felix had sent him, is that he wants to get even closer than that. Wants to cross a line that’s not supposed to be crossed. His feelings for Felix are starting to blur from platonic and brotherly to something else entirely, and they threaten to overwhelm him like a current he just can’t swim against.

  


* * *

  


On Saturdays, Chan comes with Felix to the dance studio. Every time he goes there, it’s like stepping into a little piece of Felix’s world—the friendships that he’d made, the things that he loved to do. But Chan doesn’t have that, at least not here. His common haunts are all on campus or near it, and all of his friends have flown back to their respective hometowns. The closest thing that Chan has is the local pool—it’s where he practiced for his first competitions in primary school, so it has a special place in his heart.

It makes sense, then, to take Felix with him the next time he went to the pool. Felix has shown him a little piece of his world, so Chan wants to show him a little piece of his. So one afternoon, right after they’ve finished a match in _Mortal Kombat,_ he invites Felix to come with him to the pool the next day. Felix is all smiles as he says yes.

In a bid to avoid the punishing summer heat, the two of them wake up bright and early. Chan had taken the liberty to prepare some snacks and stuff the night before, so it’s really just a matter of picking Felix up from his house and then driving the short distance to the pool. Felix slips into the passenger seat, clicks the seatbelt into place, and the sight makes Chan smile for no good reason at all.

On the way there, he plays some pop punk songs to keep their spirits high, the same ones that he listened to when he was in the throes of his teenage angst. Felix knows the lyrics to most of the songs, surprisingly enough; the car comes alive with Fall Out Boy’s _I Don’t Care._ This early, there’s no one else at the pool, so Chan takes the parking spot closest to the gate before turning off the ignition.

And perhaps he should have foreseen that something of this sort would happen. Aside from being fun, one thing Chan could count on Felix to do is give him a heart attack every time they meet—sometimes in big ways, sometimes in small.

Felix seems to derive immense joy from teasing him, but Chan’s failed to keep that in mind. So when they get to the pool and the first thing Felix does is _shed clothes,_ Chan is understandably flustered.

“W-what are you doing?” Chan splutters. He hasn’t even put down their picnic basket yet.

“Taking off my clothes,” Felix answers. “You don’t expect me to swim in these, do you?”

“No, but…,” Chan trails off. “You really couldn’t wait until we’d like. Set things up.”

“Well, I am kind of excited,” Felix replies, folding his shirt and setting it on top of the table. “I haven’t been to the pool in _ages._ ”

“You don’t go here often with your friends?” asks Chan. He putters about a little bit, taking their towels from their kit bags and setting them onto adjacent deck chairs, just so he has something else to do aside from stare.

“Minho-hyung can’t swim, and Hyunjin hates the pool because it makes his hair all frizzy,” explains Felix, “Chenle straight up _burns_ if he’s left under the sun too long, and Jeongin doesn’t want to swim if it’s not like, in a group. So yeah, I really don’t go here often.”

“You’re sure you haven’t forgotten how to swim yet?” teases Chan.

“If I’ve forgotten,” says Felix, his voice toeing the line between innocent and flirtatious, “then hyung can just teach me again, right?”

“R-right,” Chan says. Or rather, stutters. When he looks back up, Felix is in sky blue board shorts that reach his mid-thighs.

He doesn’t know why that hits him so hard. A shirtless Felix isn’t an uncommon sight; at the studio, all the dance crew members just change in front of everyone else, embarrassment having been discarded through years of outfit changes in cramped backstage rooms. So it’s not just Felix’s body, although it is an admittedly beautiful one—strong but delicate, the body of a dancer.

Maybe it’s because there’s no one else around? Or maybe it’s because Felix is here with him in one of his favorite places in the world. It could also be how Felix’s tan skin practically glows under the sun. The exact reasons are a mess to Chan, but when he looked up, he swears all the breath was knocked right out of his lungs.

“Hello? Chan-hyung?” Speaking of Felix, it seems as though he’s talking right now. “Hyung.”

Chan blinks, sees Felix waving the bottle of Banana Boat sunscreen in his hand. “What?”

“I said,” Felix starts, looking way too pleased, “I’ve taken a shower already, so can you help me with the sunscreen? There’s some parts of my back I can’t quite reach….”

Chan is pretty sure his right eyelid is twitching. “Okay, okay. Sit down, then.”

Felix laughs, the sound as pretty as he is, as he sits on the deck chair and hands the sunscreen bottle to Chan. He turns, leaving Chan to ponder the freckles across the bare expanse of his friend’s shoulders and back.

Chan takes a deep breath. Squirts some sunscreen onto his palm. Takes the thought of mapping those freckles with his kisses and buries it somewhere it will never see the light of day again. And then applies the sunscreen dutifully in an even layer all over Felix’s small but well-muscled back.

“Awesome, thanks, Chan-hyung,” Felix says once he’s done.

Chan takes a quick shower and applies sunscreen on himself as well. He doesn’t bother asking Felix to do it, afraid that Felix’s hands on his body might just lead to his untimely death. He’s already got one foot in the grave with the way Felix is eyeing his shirtless body.

He’d told Felix beforehand that he still needs to do his training, so he runs through warm-ups and his workout routine right after that. If he notices Felix staring at him a little too hard at times, then that’s just something he won’t mention.

“Finally,” Felix says once Chan’s finished his last lap around the pool. “I was beginning to think you just brought me here to show off.”

Chan laughs. “Of course not. Now come on in, the water’s really good.”

“Sure,” Felix says, and that’s all the warning Chan gets before he jumps into the pool.

“S’good, right?” asks Chan once Felix has come up again. The two of them are standing so close that Chan could count each lash on Felix’s eyelids if he wanted to.

“Yeah,” Felix says, face splitting into a grin. “Real good.”

Chan doesn’t know how he survives the next several hours. They don’t actually get all that much swimming done, because Felix seems more interested in chatting, albeit in water. (“Why would I want to race you to the other end of the pool? We could do that for hours and I’d lose every time.”) Chan doesn’t mind it either—it’s strangely relaxing to talk like this, with the only sounds around them being the pool jets and fountains stirring the water into motion. To Chan, the whole thing feels rather intimate. They could be the only people in this world, one full of water and smelling of chlorine and sunscreen.

In the pool, Felix stays close to him, at some points even _clinging_ onto his back, wrapping both arms around him. And still they continue talking, but now not only does Chan hear Felix’s voice, he also feels it as it rumbles in Felix’s chest. The bare chest that is pressed against Chan’s bare back. He can’t move. In his head, he utters a little prayer.

“Your muscles are so big, hyung,” comments Felix. His hands have traveled to Chan’s arms, and now he’s poking and squeezing them. “You’re so hot.”

Chan doesn’t even know how he can rationalize this as friendly behavior at this point. Maybe Felix just likes giving away compliments?

“Haha, yeah, ‘cause I work out a lot,” he coughs out, maybe one minute or five too late. He might not know how to reason it out, but that doesn’t mean he has to rise to the bait.

“Maybe you can call me up if you wanna try a different sort of workout, hm? I’ve got something that I’d like to try with you,” Felix near-purrs somewhere near Chan’s right ear, low enough for his voice to practically reverberate through both their bodies.

And then he’s pushing away from Chan and climbing the ladder that’s built into the pool’s wall, saying something about wanting to try the sandwiches Chan had made.

That’s an innuendo; in the context of the conversation, it simply has to be an innuendo. Chan can chalk up a lot of things as friendly behavior or teasing, but that comment had too much heat for it to be tongue-in-cheek.

He gets out of the pool a moment later, and wonders if he’s been in the wrong all this time.

  


* * *

  


Chan doesn’t get any reprieve. The more he tries to convince himself that it’s not like _that_ between him and Felix, the more Felix acts like it is. He’d been flirty before, but after that morning at the pool he becomes forward. Insistent. And while Chan never reciprocates Felix’s words and actions, he never rejects them, either. He freezes up, pretends it isn’t happening, and pulls away when it gets too much, but he never rejects it outright.

He doesn’t want to admit it, but there’s probably an element of truth to what Changbin and Jisung said the last time. Felix seems interested in him in a way that’s different from before, from when they were both small, and it’s still. Well. It’s still a lot to take in.

The thing is Chan has known Felix since he was zero years old. When he thinks of Felix, the first thing that comes to mind is him as a child. Most of Chan’s memories of Felix involve him at a very young age—shorter, slighter, shy, and somewhat scared of the world. Chan can’t help it if some part of his brain still registers Felix as the boy he grew up with, someone completely at odds with the young man that he is right now. And Felix has done everything from steal Chan’s food, attend his piano recitals, and fly kites with him, but this is the first time that he’s flirted with Chan. Felix is leading him through uncharted territory, and it’s concerning.

Or rather, its effect on Chan is.

Each heated look from Felix breaks Chan down a little more; each one of his touches is a compelling argument. _It’s not like_ that _between us, hyung, but it could be,_ Felix seems to be saying. _So what do you think?_

What Chan thinks is, every day he spends with Felix is an exercise in self-denial.

What Chan thinks is, it’s nice that cold showers exist, because they cool him down in more ways than one.

What Chan thinks is, this summer is slowly driving him insane, but he can’t even complain because he likes it.

  


* * *

  


He’s been holding himself back for so long that when he finally reciprocates Felix’s touch, it’s rather anticlimactic.

They’re in the Lees’ movie room, having just finished dinner a while ago. Unlike the other rooms in the house, which are bright with wide, open windows, the lights here are dimmed low, the blackout curtains all drawn. It has the effect of creating somewhat of a suspended, isolated space. Behind the curtains, the windows rattle and shake from a freak summer storm.

It’s the perfect sort of atmosphere for watching horror movies, or at least that’s what Felix thinks. And because Chan doesn’t really mind what they watch, he lets Felix take his pick.

Felix selects the original _Texas Chainsaw Massacre,_ which is a pretty solid choice as far as horror movies go. Chan’s watched it once before with his uni swim team, and it had scared Jackson to near tears. The movie is exactly what its name would suggest: bloody, violent, and terrifying. It’s rather straightforward too; there’s nothing subtle about all the blood, screaming, and death in it. The suspense mostly comes from Leatherface the cannibal murderer chasing them down instead of something more delicate like the protagonist’s gradual psychological breakdown.

The first part of the movie is uneventful, just the characters getting introduced and the reasons for their travel being elucidated. Bizarre incidents of grave vandalism push siblings Sally and Franklin to check their grandfather’s grave with their friends. But the film picks up soon enough, or maybe Chan zones out a bit until they’re already at the part where Kirk, one of the siblings’ friends, enters Leatherface’s farmhouse.

For Chan, horror movies are only terrifying the first time he watches them—that’s why he doesn’t so much as flinch when Leatherface claims his first victim with his sledgehammer. But Felix is sat next to him, muscles all tensed up, eyes wide in rapt attention, and jumping slightly at every as the events of the film unfold, so Chan thinks he hasn’t seen this film before.

It’s not until Pam walks into the room of bones that Felix visibly jolts, snuggling into Chan as she begins to retch and scream. Leatherface finds her soon enough, and Felix’s attentive expression soon turns to one of genuine terror as he chases her down. By the end of the sequence, Pam is hanging from a meat hook and Felix is shaking like a leaf, his hands in a death grip around Chan’s arm.

Chan doesn’t realize it until he’s done it, but he pulls Felix closer, until he’s half on his lap and half on the couch. Felix’s eyes widen like he hasn’t expected Chan to do so. As Leatherface does his worst to his victims’ bodies on screen, Felix somehow ends up fully on Chan’s lap, his back against Chan’s chest, with Chan’s arms snug around him.

“Is this better?” asks Chan, voice quiet.

“Yeah.”

Before them, the movie goes on. The rest of the group begins to worry because Pam and the others haven’t come back to their homestead. One of them, Jerry, sets out in search of Pam, and Chan already knows how badly things will end for him.

He and Felix sit like this, touching in more places than not, and Chan thinks… this isn’t so bad?

He has to wonder why he’s even held himself back. He’s set so many rules for himself with Felix—don’t look too long, don’t take the bait, don’t touch, _not in any circumstance_ —and what it takes to break all those rules is a horror movie? It makes all his rules seem stupid in hindsight. Useless. And really, there isn’t anything wrong with this, is there? Maybe Chan’s been overthinking the guilt as well, paying too much attention to the part of him that said giving into Felix in any sort of way is wrong.

Because how can this be wrong? What it is instead is perfect, Felix soft and warm in his arms. His hair smells like strawberries and vanilla.

On the screen, Leatherface swings his chainsaw wildly and Felix recoils, yelling in shock. Chan finds his hand in the dark, squeezing it gently.

“I hate this film,” Felix comments, squeezing back.

“We can always change it to another one,” Chan says. He shifts to pick up the remote that’s a bit to the side of them, but Felix stops him by the arm.

“No, no,” Felix says, “let’s just stay like this.”

So they do.

  


* * *

  


And that’s how it starts. How after weeks of being too conscious of Felix’s words and touches and actions, being guilty because of the way he was reacting, Chan finally says, _fuck it._

Now, when Felix reaches out to him, hooks his arm around his, or rests his head against his shoulders, Chan’s first response isn’t to freeze up and ignore it until Felix decides to do something else. No; what he does instead is lean into the touch. Pull him closer, if he can. And although there’s still a little residual guilt lingering at the back of his mind—some part of him that goes _You’re really doing this with_ Felix?—it is a part that gets smaller and smaller every time.

So now there are days when they’re playing video games, but they end up all cuddled together on the sofa. When the sofa gets too cramped and Chan’s arm starts to go numb, they relocate to the floor. Chan is aware that lying on a fluffy throw rug isn’t the most sanitary thing to do, but he’s seen Mrs. Lee vacuum this almost every day, and Felix is still hugging him so all other thoughts can leave through the window.

Felix still has work, so Chan makes a point to visit him when he can. There’s really nothing else to do in a 7-Eleven besides wander the aisles and talk to Felix when he’s not busy, but Chan doesn’t care. When he pays for the Slurpee and Lays that he’s bought, Felix’s fingers linger on his own for far too long. He stays in the shop until he gets a text from his dad to come home for lunch.

They stop by the dance studio and when, on a whim, Felix teaches Chan some of their choreography, he gets behind Chan and maneuvers his arms until they’re at precisely the correct angle. Chan doesn’t tense up or lose his nerve, and Felix is pleased when he executes the move well. Two days after that, Chan takes Felix to the pool, and this time instead of just chatting in the water, he teaches Felix how to do a proper breaststroke.

He even flirts back with Felix now, because he figures he might as well go big or go home. He isn’t quite as explicit as Felix, but even the smallest of flirty comments make Felix blush, anyway. It’s his turn to get red these days, and Chan likes the fact that despite how shameless Felix is with his lines, he’s not immune to them when he’s on the receiving end.

The whole transition has been simple. Mostly painless. Instead of swimming against the current, Chan has just let himself be carried by it. In the first place, it wasn’t as if he was put up more than a token sort of resistance—he liked Felix too much to do so, didn’t he?

“Congratulations on unclenching,” Jisung tells him, the next time 3RACHA have a video call. Chan flips him off with both hands while Changbin laughs until he’s snorting.

“No, seriously,” Jisung continues, “it was kinda painful to hear you talk about him because it was _so_ obvious that you were into him—and then you’d just go, ‘Oh we’re best friends, and it’s not like that’.”

“Right?” Changbin agrees, and loudly. “Hyung, we haven’t had a single call where you didn’t mention Felix at all. S’all ‘Felix did this today’ or ‘Felix said this yesterday’ and like. We got it, but we were wondering when you would.”

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad,” says Chan, running a hand through his hair. The three of them are so close that he just shares whatever pops up into his mind. He didn’t notice that he had been talking about Felix that much.

Jisung lets out a put-upon sigh. “But it _was,_ though. Remember that one time you guys went to the studio or something, and Felix brought you to their pole dancing room instead of the usual one? Yeah, that was wild.”

“In my defense,” Chan begins, “I really thought I was going to die that day.” Felix was already sinuous and deadly when he was dancing on the floor, but seeing him spin around a pole, even if it was just for shits and giggles, was a little too much for Chan’s poor heart.

“See, we were right about the flirting, weren’t we?” Changbin comments, a triumphant smile on his face. “He likes you, and you finally figured out that you like him. So when are you going to ask him out?”

If Chan were to be honest, he hasn’t thought about that part yet. Isn’t it moving a little too fast if he asked Felix out anytime soon? Just a few days ago, he was roiling in misguided guilt because his crush on Felix was ballooning out of control. Despite being aware of how much Felix had changed, he was too caught up in memories to fully process it—the fact that his childhood best friend had grown up and was apparently interested in him. Only recently had he managed to talk himself into letting the guilt go, because when he really got down to it, there really wasn’t anything wrong, was there?

So he tells them, “I don’t know. We haven’t talked about that yet.”

Changbin shrugs. “Eh. You just had a whole crisis about it so that’s kinda understandable. But you have to talk to him, you know, hyung.”

Chan nods. He knows that. But they still have time left. They’ll talk when they have to. There’s no need to rock the boat just yet.

For now, having finally allowed himself to, he enjoys his time with Felix to the fullest.

  


* * *

  


Today’s one of those mind-numbingly hot summer days, the kind where if you so much as went out you would melt into a puddle of sweat in five minutes flat. Chan and Felix had planned to go to the pool today, but there’s something distinctly unappealing about swimming while it’s 38°C out. Deciding it was fine to have a lazy day in, they took over the sofa in the Lees’ movie room and just lied down.

The lump lying on Chan’s chest mumbles, “Hyung, I’m bored.”

Chan hums, too lazy to even reply.

“I kinda wanna bleach my hair,” the lump adds.

“Why?”

“Just wanna try it.”

“Okay,” Chan says amicably. Felix would look good with blonde hair, wouldn’t he? But then again, he’d look good with anything. Chan is so gone on him at this point that he could probably go bald and the sight would still make Chan’s heart rate pick up.

“Okay?” Felix asks, pushing up and off Chan’s chest. “Do you wanna do it now?”

“Uh,” Chan begins unthinkingly. “Like right now? We don’t have any bleach.”

“Let’s go to the pharmacy, then,” Felix says, now seated on the sofa. “It’s not like we’re doing anything today.”

“But it’s so _hot_ outside,” whines Chan.

“I’ll drive,” Felix says insistently, trying to pull Chan up until he’s sitting upright. When Chan turns away, wanting to stay put, Felix adds, “Come _on,_ hyung. Please? For me?”

It’s unfair that Felix knows how much power he has over him, Chan thinks. What’s he supposed to do, not give Felix what he wants? “Okay, fine, sheesh. ‘m gettin’ up.”

Felix cheers.

The two of them aren’t so shameless as to walk around in their pajamas, so they change into shorts and shirts. Chan dreads walking back to his own house just to get some clothes, so Felix lends him some of his clothes instead. The clothes, especially the shirt, are a bit tight; although the two of them are the same height, Chan is a good deal wider, more built. Felix takes one look at his arms straining against the shirtsleeves and laughs.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his lips still curling up at the sides, “you look so good in anything, even my shitty old shirts, that it’s kind of ridiculous.”

“O _kay,_ let’s just get your bleach now,” Chan coughs out, feeling warm despite the cold room.

Just as he’d predicted, the five-minute walk to from the door to the garage is unbearable, so getting into Felix’s car comes as a greater relief than it normally does. The nearest pharmacy is only a few kilometers away, and the trip passes in easy conversation.

“Have you ever done this before?” Chan asks. He can’t remember having seen Felix with blonde hair before. Or maybe he’d had it, but during the times they didn’t talk.

“No,” Felix says.

“Do you even know how to bleach hair?”

“No, which is why I was hoping you did,” Felix answers honestly. “Didn’t you have bleached hair before?”

Chan groans, remembering that one year in secondary school when he’d sported blonde hair. In hindsight, he’d probably looked more like a cotton ball than anything—bleached hair and bleach from the swimming pool did not make a good combination. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“Great,” Felix says. He takes his eyes off the road for a moment to give Chan a significant look. “So you can do me, then.”

“Uh—” The insinuation isn’t lost on Chan.

“Oh, we’re here already,” Felix cuts in, smiling beatifically. He slows the car down and parks in one of the empty spots in front of the pharmacy. “Can you help me buy the shit? I have literally no idea what I’m supposed to be getting.”

Using what he can remember from his bleach blonde days, Chan guides Felix through the purchases. They buy bleach and developer, petroleum jelly, a plastic cap and plastic gloves, hair clips, and a hair color brush. Chan asks Felix what kind of blonde he’s going for, and Felix tells him he wants to achieve a Daenerys level of blonde, so he chucks in a bottle of toner in their basket, too. Then he adds a sulfate-free shampoo and conditioner, plus a protein hair mask for good measure; he’s not letting Felix’s hair get fried to death like his was before.

“That’s a lot of stuff,” Felix comments. He picks up the tub of protein hair mask, reading the label curiously.

“If I’m bleaching your hair, then I have to do it right, don’t I?” Chan says. Maybe he should get the keratin serum, too—?

“Alright, you can put that down, hyung,” Felix says, his palm warm against the back of Chan’s hand. “I’m sure this _L’Oreal Paris Elvive Total Repair 5 Damage-Erasing Balm—_ ” he giggles at the long and ridiculous name—“is fine on its own.”

“If you say so,” Chan says.

He pays for everything before Felix can even reach for his own wallet, and Felix’s protests follow him all the way until they reach the car. “You’re already bleaching my hair, you didn’t have to _pay_ for it, too,” he grumbles, which is rather funny to Chan; this is probably the first time Felix has protested the fact Chan has bought him something.

“Yeah, but I wanted to,” Chan says as he shuts the door beside him.

Felix huffs, and the sound has no right to be as cute as it is. “Thank you, then,” he says quietly, “for everything.”

“You’re welcome,” Chan says, but in his head, it sounds more like, _For you? Anything._

  


* * *

  


When they get home, Chan instructs Felix to change into an old shirt he won’t mind getting damaged, and to prepare an old towel for the shower that comes after bleaching. Felix does, and then he leads Chan into his room.

“Wait, should we really be doing this here?” Felix asks, gesturing to the room at large. “My mom would kill me if I got bleach on the floor.”

“Oh shit, right,” Chan says, agreeing.

And that’s how they end up in Felix’s tiny en suite.

It’s cramped and cold in here, and there’s really not enough space for it to be comfortable. Because there’s nowhere else to sit, Chan makes Felix sit on the edge of the toilet. The en suite layout has the toilet facing a mirror for some reason, for which Chan is grateful—at least Felix will be able to see what’s happening to his hair. He mixes some bleach powder and developer together in a small plastic bowl and sets it on the wall-mounted shelf above the toilet.

“Ready to get started?” Chan asks. Felix nods.

Chan had bleached his own hair for a whole year in secondary school, so he’s happy to find that much of his muscle memory for the process still remains. First, he applies petroleum jelly around Felix’s hairline and ears; this would prevent the bleach from getting on his skin. Next, he combs Felix’s hair and parts the front into two sections, securing these in place with hair clips. Since Felix wants a platinum blonde, they’ll have to do bleach his hair at least twice, with each session being one week apart; Chan tells Felix this, and he nods throughout Chan’s explanation. 

When bleaching hair, it’s generally advisable to start applying the bleach paste where the hair is thickest and longest. In Felix’s case, that would be the front section of his hair; the back is neatly trimmed, and the sides are short, fresh from the undercut he got three weeks ago. So Chan starts applying the bleach evenly to the two sections he made with Felix’s hair, left first before the right. He pins the hair in place once he’s done, and then he moves on to the back of Felix’s head. The hair here is short enough that it doesn’t require hair clips to manage, making Chan’s job easier. Finally, he applies bleach to the sides, where the hair is the shortest. Once he’s done, he puts a plastic cap on Felix’s head.

All throughout the process, Felix’s eyes have watched Chan’s hands in the mirror. The combination of the small, cold space and the focused stare has Chan shivering slightly.

“It’s done,” says Chan, and in the silence that they’ve maintained the past few minutes, his voice sounds abnormally loud. “We’ll have to wait thirty minutes and then you have to wash the bleach off and apply the hair mask.”

“Wish you’d do that for me, too,” Felix sighs. His voice is quiet, and maybe Chan wouldn’t have heard those words had he said them anywhere else. They’re in a damn en suite, though, so Felix might as well have shouted them. “Ah, sorry, did I say that out loud?”

“Yeah,” Chan says, feeling himself turn red and seeing it happen real-time in the mirror.

“Well, I do mean it,” Felix says, ever shameless. “What say you, hyung? I think we’d fit in my shower stall just fine.”

“Uh, pass,” Chan says, and when he next looks at himself in the mirror, he’s already the color of a beet.

Felix snickers at him. “Your loss.”

  


* * *

  


They do another round of bleaching a week later, and Felix’s hair goes from vibrant amber to striking gold. Chan tells him it’s still not the right time to apply the toner, so Felix turns up at the weekly dance studio session with hair the color of a medal.

It’s not a bad look on him by any means, even if it’s not the right color just yet. When his friends ask him if he did the bleaching by himself, he giggles and says, “Nope! Channie-hyung did it for me! He’s the best, isn’t he?”

Chan has a feeling that it’s this comment that made Minho corner him while the other dancers are out getting water from the fountain.

“So,” Minho starts. There’s that sharp look in his eyes again, the one that reminds Chan so much of a cat. “What’s up between you and Felix these days? You two seem awfully close.”

Chan gulps, unsure if he’s supposed to actually answer the question or just stay silent and let Minho say what he wants.

“I hate giving the shovel talk,” Minho continues, “mostly because I couldn’t care less about who my friends are fucking or whatever. It’s none of my business, you know?”

Chan chokes on air because of the careless way Minho dropped that. He has to say something so that he doesn’t get the wrong impression. “W-we’re not having sex,” he chokes out. The two of them haven’t even _kissed_ yet, what the hell.

“Well, I don’t know what it is that you’re doing with him, and no, I don’t really wanna know,” Minho says, preemptively halting the explanation Chan wanted to stutter out. “But just. Felix is the sweetest, nicest person I know—which is saying something because I’m convinced that I work with _angels_ half the time,” he says, casting a fond eye towards his dancer friends, who are slowly filtering back into the room. His eyes harden once more, though, when he sets them on Chan. “Anyway. That’s not the point. The point is, I think you know just how much Felix likes you. So if you so much as harm a hair on Felix’s head, I will not hesitate to fucking cut you.”

Minho’s voice is calm and flat as he says this, and he ends his sentence with a polite smile. To Chan, it’s scarier than if Minho had been shouting at him.

“Do I make myself clear?” Minho continues, still looking impassive as ever.

“Yes, you do,” Chan says, willing the tremor in his voice away. “Alright. No harming a hair on his head. No sirree.”

“Though honestly,” Minho says, his expression softening once again as he looks at something in the distance. Chan follows his line of sight and sees Felix laughing as he enters the room, Hyunjin and Seungmin in tow. “Maybe that’s not the turn of phrase I should be using, huh? You did just help him bleach his hair.” Minho laughs quietly, hiding his mouth behind a hand. “Oh, don’t look so _terrified._ I haven’t done anything to you yet.”

He walks away, all confident strides as he greets his friends, taking a water bottle from Felix and draining its contents. What a coincidence, because Chan’s mouth suddenly feels a lot drier than it had been five minutes ago.

Later, after dance practice ends, and Felix and he are going back home, Felix asks, “I saw Minho-hyung talking to you earlier. What was that about?”

“Ah,” Chan says, fingers tightening around the wheel. He’s not sure how to explain that particular conversation. Or if he actually wants to explain that particular conversation at all. But in the end, he decides it’s better to just be honest, so he tells Felix what Minho told him.

Felix laughs after Chan’s explanation, which is not the reaction Chan had expected. “Minho-hyung always does that. Threatening people who get close to the crew members, I mean.”

“He does?” Chan relaxes slightly. But then again, just because Minho gives these kinds of threats all the time, it doesn’t mean that he won’t make good on them.

“Yeah,” Felix says. “He did it to Seungmin too. After, uh, he and Hyunjin first went out together.” In a smaller voice, he adds, “They’re boyfriends now.”

“Ah,” Chan says again, because it’s a little awkward to be talking about going out and boyfriends when he and Felix haven’t talked about their own relationship. Changbin’s voice comes back to haunt him: _You need to talk to him, hyung._

Chan knows that he does. When he and Felix end up lying on the Lees’ white leather sofa for the nth time, it’s all that’s on his mind.

Is it so bad that he doesn’t think he can just ask Felix to go out with him? He doesn’t know why, but the thought of doing so weighs heavily on him. His friends would get on his case if he ever told them this, which he can understand—hasn’t Felix shown enough interest in him for his fears to be dispelled?

He has. He has, of course. So why is Chan still scared?

  


* * *

  


It’s not until two weeks later that he figures it out.

They did the last round of bleaching a few days ago, and he finally got to apply the toner on Felix’s hair. The end result was a platinum blonde that looked so good on Felix that Chan just froze up for a good minute. Felix had looked oddly at his stricken gaze, asking if his hair looked bad.

“No,” he’d said, because Felix and his platinum blonde hair and beseeching gaze had killed his brain-to-mouth filter, “no, you look so beautiful that I think I’m going crazy.” The smile that he got, wide enough that Felix’s eyes crinkled at the corners, made his stupid comment all worth it.

Because Felix’s hair is bleached to near death now, they stay in more than usual, forgoing their morning runs and trips to the pool together. If Chan has to run and swim he does so alone, because Felix says he doesn’t want to risk damaging his hair any more than he already has. And anyway, the summer heat’s gone and gotten worse, as if it isn’t already bad enough—Chan has to do his workouts at five AM just to avoid the worst of it.

So, yes. They stay in, and though they were already playing video games and watching movies and lying around and doing all sorts of shit, somehow, they manage to do that even _more._ Chan even starts to regularly hang out with Felix after work—he goes to the 7-Eleven thirty minutes before Felix’s shift ends, waits the shift out with a large Slurpee in hand, and then drives Felix to either of their houses. Either, because if they decide they want to go to Chan’s house today Felix just borrows some of his clothes so that he doesn’t have to stay in his uniform.

Right now, they’re baking chocolate chip cookies in Chan’s kitchen. They’re doing it here instead of the Lees’ kitchen where they normally work because Mr. Lee is getting a new counter installed. Chan’s kitchen is slightly smaller than that of the Lees’, and the kitchen tools are all in different places, so Chan has to guide Felix a little bit in the unfamiliar setting.

Baking with Felix is mostly Felix doing the work and him taking over when Felix thinks a task is too tiring or repetitive, but it’s fun anyway. It gives Chan a lot of time to just watch Felix—not that he doesn’t do that already, but he appreciates every extra moment.

Felix has his head down, his soft blonde hair falling into his eyes as he sets the oven temperature. The freckles on his bare face stand out a little more than they did at the start of the summer, their earlier trips to the pool having tanned him slightly. He’s humming something to himself, a catchy pop song that Chan has heard a few times on the radio, and it’s here and now that a thought hits him with the force of a lightning bolt.

He likes Felix. Actually fucking likes him. And it’s not just the kind of like that’s purely physical—the type of like that has him finding Felix hot and wanting to kiss him and entertaining other such wicked thoughts. No, it’s the kind of like that makes his heart seize up and then start beating again—at twice the speed this time—because Felix is just that dear to him. The kind that makes him want to share every little thing with Felix, because if it’s with Felix then he can’t go wrong. It’s the kind that has him daydreaming about holding Felix’s hand as he brings him to some of his favorite spots in campus, or takes him out on dates in his favorite restaurants, or introduces him to his friends, and maybe Chan should’ve caught on earlier because he thinks those daydreams started one or two weeks back.

And he realizes, with a horrible sort of clarity, that this thing between them has gotten way bigger than the playful lines and physical touches they exchange. Bigger than all the video games they’ve played and movies they’ve watched; bigger than his visits to the studio and Felix’s trips to the pool. Over the summer, Chan has actually grown to like Felix a lot.

Or perhaps that’s the wrong way of putting it. He’s already liked Felix a lot before, in spite of the gulf that had grown between them, but it’s this summer that’s put a completely new spin on that old feeling of fondness. Like an old song rearranged for a new instrument.

It seems like something inevitable when Chan thinks of it that way, regardless of how he’d spent the first month of summer beating himself up over his feelings. How the fuck is he supposed not to like Felix? That’s like asking him not to breathe.

He likes everything about Felix: his soft and low speaking voice, the way his nose scrunches up when he hears a bad joke, the fact that he can bake anything under the sun but cannot cook a pancake without burning it. How he always ends up lying on Chan, one way or another, when they’re watching movies. How he flirts with outrageous lines but turns the color of a tomato when it’s Chan flirting with him.

Chan can admit that the whole thing is kind of funny, because he’d gone from denying his growing attraction to liking Felix this much. But then again, those two things aren’t mutually exclusive, are they? He’s starting to think that timewise, they have quite a bit of overlap.

“You’re spacing out, hyung,” Felix says, voice low and sweet, and because Chan is so attuned to him all the thoughts in his head fly away the moment he speaks. “Are you that hungry already? These cookies still need to bake for twelve minutes and cool for ten.”

“Ah, no, I’m fine,” Chan says, blinking fast and breathing sharply. Felix fixes him with a curious look, so he smiles and says, “I’m okay, Lixie. Seriously. I think I’m just thirsty, so I’m going to get a glass of water.”

“Okie dokie,” says Felix, and then he goes back to watching his cookies through the glass panel of the oven.

Chan takes a glass from an overhead cabinet and fills it with cold water from the sink. He knows Felix likes him too—but that’s only in the physical sense, isn’t it? Felix has made the most transparent of passes at him, so he can’t say that Felix isn’t interested in him at all. But what Chan doesn’t know is if Felix has fallen as deep as he has. The thought of finding out that he hasn’t terrifies him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Avoiding the horror movie part: skip the paragraph that starts with “Felix selects the original” and the paragraphs that follow it. Continue reading at the paragraph that starts with “Chan doesn’t realize it”
> 
> The bleaching process is rather realistic because reading fic where someone goes “I want to dye my hair blonde” is one of my pet peeves haha. You don't dye dark hair to get it blonde 😭😭
> 
> If you read this immediately after I post it, I’m sorry because there are likely errors I won’t catch until later. But still, thanks for reading! ❤


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